Best Practices for International Growth

This week's show is entitled, "Best Practices for International Growth" and my guest is Andrew Champion, SVP International at 6sense.

Tune in to Learn:

• The distinct cultural and regulatory differences in various international markets.
• How companies need to tailor their approaches to succeed.
• The impact of data privacy laws on marketing strategies and the growing role of AI in improving sales effectiveness.
• The importance of understanding and respecting local market nuances for successful international sales expansion.

Listen Now | Watch the video HERE | Read the Transcript on the Heinz Marketing blog.

 

Matt interviews the best and brightest minds in sales and Marketing.  If you would like to be a guest on Sales Pipeline Radio send an email to [e-mail].

Sales Pipeline Radio was recently listed as one of 30 Best Sales Management Podcasts and Top 60 Sales Podcasts

Episode Transcript

(00:15):
All right.
Welcome everybody to anotherepisode of Sales Pipeline Radio.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Really excited to have you all here.
If this is your very first time onSales Pipeline Radio, just really,
really excited to have you here.
Thank you very much for making uspart of your work day and work week.
Thank you so much for downloading,for subscribing, for listening
and watching the show.

(00:36):
You can always catch every episode ofSales Pipeline Radio, past, present,
and future at salespipelineradio.com.
So very excited to haveyou all here today.
Really excited to diginto our conversation.
Andy Champion, SVP ofInternational for 6sense.
Andy, thanks for joining us.
Matt, absolute pleasure to be here.
We were joking before we got startedthat your title is SVP of International,

(00:56):
which basically means there's anentire company that does American go
to market apparently, and you alonehave, I don't know what, we're up
to like 290 countries on your own.
So just real quick for those that don'tknow you, give me a little background of
who you are, your background, your role.
Yeah, so Matt, as you say, my roleis everything outside of North
America, which sounds very grand.

(01:17):
Fortunately, I've got a phenomenal teamaround me that does a lot of the heavy
lifting, but really my remit is to help usgrow our international revenues at 6sense.
My background-- I've been in aroundsales technology, marketing technology
for, as you can probably guess frommy lack of hair well over 20 years.
So I don't have all the answers,but I have a lot of scars.

(01:39):
And much of that time has beenhelping US based technology vendors
figure out how the hell do we go intoEMEA, Europe, Middle East, Africa?
How the hell do we go beyond thatinto maybe some of the other regions
of the world, like Australia,Asia Pacific, and the likes.
" So we were joking earlier that a lot of companies, when they think

(02:01):
about their go to market strategy,they say, well, I've got a U.
S.
strategy and then a quote unquote "restof world", which ironically sounds
very colonial in nature in terms of howyou think about a hierarchy and just
sounds like just way too generalized.
As someone who is based in London,thinking about EMEA, but also
thinking about other markets, howshould we be thinking about it?
What's a better way to potentiallythink about markets outside of the U.

(02:26):
S.
from an operational anda pragmatic standpoint?
The first thing is to acknowledgethat even if we just talk about EMEA,
EMEA, Europe, Middle East, Africa.
Three distinct subsections of EMEA.
Many organizations might breakdown what I would call Western
Europe into Northern Europe.

(02:49):
Kind of think UK, maybe a bit ofBenelux, maybe a little bit of the
Nordic, Sweden, Norway, and the likes.
Southern Europe, probably out of France,encompassing Spain, Portugal, and Italy.
And then Central Europe you know,commonly you'll hear about DAC,
which is Germany and Austria andSwitzerland looking sort of East.

(03:12):
But the reality is, and I think thisis really important for organizations
as they think about their EMEAstrategy is to understand that within
EMEA there are distinct sub regionsand there are distinct cultural
differences that show up in the buyingcycle within discrete countries.

(03:34):
For example, in Germany, generallythe burden of proof, the level of due
diligence, as I say, in general is higherthan perhaps it might be in the US.
In Sweden and the Nordics,typically it's more of a consensus
driven purchasing decision.
And that shows up in allof the data that we see.

(03:58):
And I know you spent time withKerry Cunningham in the past.
We've just released a European B2BBuyer Experience, and there's a
lot of data points in there thatreally evidence what I've just said.
Each country is different, and itis behoven upon us to understand
how those differences impact howwe need to engage with our buyers.

(04:21):
Yeah, I think it's really, reallyimportant what you just said that, you
broke it up as Europe, Middle East,Africa, but even that's not fair, right?
You've got different countries, differentcultures, different ways of buying.
And I would say if you're not ready andwilling to invest in operationalizing
those differences, then you're probablynot ready to sell into those markets.

(04:44):
Cause you cannot bring the fully WesternUS approach and think that's just going to
work everywhere that you wish it can work.
And it gets more complicated than thattoo because now you've got different
markets-- let's just take Europe, forexample, you've got EU that has some
generalized policies, but privacypolicies, data management policies are
different in different countries as well.

(05:05):
We can't get into everything, but talk alittle bit about what you know and see in
terms of those broader differences and howsellers and especially companies that are
using data to market into those companies,how they need to think about it.
When somebody is looking topartner with a technology vendor
that is going to support them.
Look, any technology vendor worththeir salt is going to understand and

(05:27):
comply with all of the local laws.
6sense, as you know, is driven by data.
It's the fuel of everythingwe do with our customers.
And so part of our duty is to makesure that we are compliant in all of
the countries in which we operate andwe support the needs of our customers.
So I would say, when you'relooking at vendors make sure you

(05:48):
do your due diligence then but alsounderstand that in markets such
as Germany, there is a higher bar.
In markets such as Germany,there are actually seven
distinct regions within Germany.
Each of which has their ownsubtle interpretation of
the laws and they do differ.
But understanding what those requirementsare in advance, building that into

(06:14):
your go to market strategy are just asimportant as the cultural differences
that I've talked about, and good partnersand good vendors are going to be able
to help you navigate that journey.
Does that constrain, a marketer'sability to leverage some of the data and
intent signals that exist in the market?
Here in the US we're used to, anddefinitely I think in many cases take

(06:37):
advantage of more lax laws around privacyand what is and what isn't accepted.
I would argue that a lot of Europeanmarkets are far more advanced in
terms of consumer and data protection.
How does that impact go to marketstrategies for companies that you work
with that have pretty robust EMEA andespecially European go to market strategy?

(06:58):
It definitely has an influence.
And that shows up differently inthe different markets, but more
broadly, there is a higher bar.
So, simplistically in many cases, we area permission driven organization, market.
So once you seek to gather thatpermission there are places where

(07:20):
a legitimate business interestdoes allow you to communicate.
But more broadly, I thinkit's common courtesy, right?
Build up trust with youraudience, with your market.
Help them in the buying decisionsthat they are seeking to make.
And then broadly, when you ask for thattrust to be reciprocated through some

(07:40):
sort of permissioning of communication,so long as within that communication
you stay relevant, then you're unlikelyto fall foul of people that opt out.
But certainly when people opt out,of course, you need to respect that.
So as I say, it's very importantto understand the different

(08:02):
rules and regulations by country.
Plan for that within your marketingstrategy and use partners that are
able to help you navigate throughthe various differences that we
see across the European landscape.
Talking today on Sales PipelineRadio with Andy Champion.
He's the SVP of International for 6sense..
You referenced some data, some researchfrom the fall that Kerry Cunningham

(08:25):
did that we've quoted quite a bit herearound buyer behavior-- when buyers
want to be engaged, but also the highpercent of sellers that get selected
when they're the first to engage.
And it seems like it's kind of acontradictory statement to say,
well, they don't want to hear fromyou until like almost three quarters
of the way through the process.

(08:45):
But they'll most likely buy fromthe first person they talk to.
And so to a US marketer, I'd say stoptrying to sell them, stop trying to put
them into a demo, but get some valueadded content in front of them, do some
education, do some brand building, dosome credibility building early on.
It's more difficult to do that in a marketwhen you can't do unsolicited marketing.

(09:05):
And yet the data is actually evenmore compelling in EMEA markets based
on Kerry's research that like thosebuyers really do have preference
for the first person they talk to.
What kind of advice do you give for folksmarketing into these tighter, more data
privacy restricted markets to build thatcredibility and attention upfront to have

(09:27):
that advantage come active buying time?
One of the great advantages we haveis that we can still use intent data
to understand and segment people,understand where people may be or broadly
companies may be in their buying cycle.
As you quite rightly said, Matt,in the earlier stages, the goal I

(09:49):
think of our engagement nowadaysreally must be educational.
We're about earning trust.
We're about building awareness.
We're not about forcingpeople into that demo, right?
That's not the way thatpeople are going to buy.
Ninety percent of the time, whenan organization buys, people

(10:09):
within that buying cycle have hadprior experience of that business.
Now, we see typically somewhere between3 maybe up to 5 percent of your total
addressable market is likely to be ina buying cycle at any one given point.
It's a small number of companies.
It's a small proportion.
But that proportion, you really needto make sure that you're in front of,

(10:32):
because 76 percent of the time in Europe,76 percent of the time, the vendor that
speaks to the buying group first, wins.
And this is where, as organizationslook to come into international
markets, right, into Europe,Middle East, Africa, into APAC.

(10:54):
It's really important to get aheadof the strategy, to look at how you
can leverage technology to understandwhere you put your resources, right?
We're no longer in aworld of grow at any cost.
We are in a world of responsible growth.
We are in a world where we reallymust, we owe it to our shareholders

(11:18):
and stakeholders, and we owe it,frankly, to our colleagues, right?
to set them up for success.
And in my world, that's about havingmy BDR team spend as much of their time
as possible in front of organizationsthat want to speak with us and that
have a really good idea about whatwe do so we can have a robust and

(11:41):
educative conversation about how wecan impact and align to their goals.
And the data and the technology, it's allthere to help you navigate that in Europe
and get in front of people that want tohave a conversation and stop spending
your time looking through this haystack ofthousands of emails and phone numbers and

(12:03):
building cadences with people that, quitefrankly, really don't want to hear from
you because you haven't got a solutionto the problems that they have right now.
So there's permission, there'santicipation, there's data
protection and privacy.
Let's talk about AI a littlebit relative to that as well.
In the US we're still very much kindof a Wild West from an AI standpoint,
lots of things happening, very littleregulation at this point, seeing a

(12:26):
lot of companies start to materiallyuse AI to drive business results.
We had your colleague in the marketingteam Simon Rashid join CMO Coffee
Talk last month and talk through avery high percent of net new pipeline
that is coming from AI agents.
Is that same possibilityexist in EMEA markets?
My understanding is that the EUis a little more further along in

(12:48):
providing some regulations around AI.
But talk a little bit of how peopleshould be thinking about how to
leverage AI tools and AI agents insome of those European markets as well.
So what I would say is we are seeinga rapid adoption of AI across all the
different aspects of marketing and sales.
We are most definitely seeingorganizations starting to

(13:11):
embrace it to drive demand.
I am firmly of the view that itremains a better together story.
It's again, it's about takingout the laborious tasks, right?
I spoke to an organization the other day,10 percent of the average salesperson's
time was spent researching accounts.
Well, we're of the view at 6sensethat that's no longer necessary.

(13:33):
We can automate a lot of that sothat sellers spend a lot less time
manually doing research and spenda lot more time thinking about what
is the point of view that I need tolead with during this conversation?
And so we're seeing a lot of organizationsleverage AI to help with that.

(13:54):
As Simon talked about, we ourselvesin Q2 saw 25 percent of our new
business pipeline created throughour agents inbound and outbound.
It's very compelling.
It's very attractive.
It's very cost effective.
Agents don't get sick.
They don't take holiday.
They're willing to work withpeople that need more attention,

(14:14):
without any level of fatigue.
And they do that with all of the richdata around intent, technographic,
buying stage, everything available.
But still it's a better together story.
So I think my message for organizationsin Europe and looking at Europe is--
I would most definitely leverage AI.

(14:36):
Broadly the same principles apply interms of communication and opt in.
And if you stay good with the generalrules around that, you're probably
going to be pretty good with AI.
Love that.
We've been referencing some data,some research, some insights.
For anyone that wants to digdeeper into that, where can they
go to get access to some of that?

(14:58):
Well, I would say from a 6senseperspective, one of the best
sources we have is Kerry Cunningham.
As you know, he has a lot ofcredibility from Sirius and the likes.
He most recently has just releasedThe European B2B Buyer Experience.
I think that's a great one that breaksdown the individual nuances of Europe.
We did a global one as well,which was released in October.

(15:20):
And later this calendar quarter, we'll bereleasing insights into the world of BDRs.
Last year we saw that 40 percentof BDRs was supported by AI tools.
It'll be interesting to see,per your last question, how that
has increased year over year.
I suspect pretty substantially.

(15:41):
I think it will, and I think alsowhat I've seen so far seems to
validate the idea I've heard fromsome people that says AI is not going
to replace people, it's going toaugment the impact people can have.
You know, I think a year and ahalf ago someone told me that
BDRs would be extinct by now.
They're not.
I've seen some companies pull back onBDRs and seen that that is an error
and they aren't necessarily likedoubling and tripling the size of their

(16:02):
BDR team, but they're keeping themintact and making them more efficient.
How?
By having AI agents do the upfrontwork to get the appointment to
do the initial qualification.
I mean, I've spent 16 years of mycareer here at Heinz Marketing trying
to figure out how do you make salesreps more effective and more efficient?
Well, part of the job of doing that is totake some of that manual work, take some

(16:23):
repeatable, scalable work out oftheir hands, have robots do it so
you can increase active selling timefrom your reps with other humans.
And that's where we arealready seeing evidence.
And I expect that we're goingto see that grow moving forward.
Andy, thank you so muchfor joining us today.
Andy Champion, SVP ofInternational for 6sense.
I know it's a little late your time,but thanks for staying up for us.

(16:45):
My pleasure.
Thanks for having me, Matt.
Absolutely.
Well, thanks everyone forwatching and listening to another
episode of Sales Pipeline Radio.
We've got an amazing lineup ofspeakers and topics for you coming
up the rest of this quarter.
Again, thanks for being here.
Thanks for joining Sales Pipeline Radio.
We will see you next week.
Until then, take care andhave a great rest of your day.